Joshua Young: Dominatus Fugue in C Minor

This is one of the most spectacular Bach-inspired pieces for bass guitar I’ve ever seen. Joshua Young wrote this extremely intricate and beautiful solo bass fugue in the style of the 18th century composer, complete with melody, counterpoint and bass line. If you weren’t looking, you’d think “Dominatus” was being performed by three different people.

Young takes his craft seriously and has deeply studied the fugue form.

“When it comes to the parameters of contrapuntal writing, harmonic functions and fugal technical devices are employed by one’s own particular reasoning and personal preferences,” Young explains. “That’s why Bach’s fugues sound very different from those of Hindemithe, Scarlatti, Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich, etc… It’s funny because some countrapuntal composers think counterpoint is the art of playing as MANY voices as possible, instead it should be about doing several musical things as CLEARLY as possible.”

He finishes the video with an inspiring quote from Bach: “I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results.”